French credit mediation (Médiation du crédit)

Credit mediation (Médiation du crédit) is a public scheme attached to the Banque de France that helps a company in dispute with its banks, leasing companies, factoring companies or credit insurers to find a negotiated solution. It is open to companies of any size, sector and legal form. The service is free. The mediator contacts the company within 48 hours of the referral. The banks then have five business days to review their position, a period extended when credit insurers need to be consulted. For a credit application, the banks undertake to respond within fifteen business days once the file is complete. For the termination of an overdraft facility, the referral must take place before the end of the sixty-day notice period. The network has 105 local credit mediators in mainland France and the overseas territories, supported by more than 500 volunteer trusted third parties. In 2025, credit mediation handled 1,034 cases, with a 64% success rate, and preserved 5,113 jobs. It works with the financial institutions that signed the market agreement and with the credit insurers bound by an agreement. For debt held by private debt funds or Euro PP investors, the negotiation frameworks are the ad hoc mandate and conciliation under the French Commercial Code.

An industrial SME with €40m of revenue receives notice from its bank terminating a €3m overdraft with sixty days’ notice. It refers the matter to credit mediation on day twenty. The bank reviews the file within five business days and converts the overdraft into a cash loan amortising over two years.

• The referral deadline: before the end of the sixty-day notice period for a terminated overdraft.
• The banks’ time commitments: five business days to review, fifteen for a credit application.
• The scope: banks, leasing, factoring and credit insurers.
• The handover to the ad hoc mandate or conciliation for non-bank lenders.